When Rob DeMartini, President and Chief Executive Officer, New Balance, Inc. walks into any of his company’s stores, he wants customers to see a consistent appearance and message.
“We’re a sporting goods and athletic brand that historically has created great products,” DeMartini told Loyalty360. “We’re thinking about the detail of choreographing that customer relationship. When we look at what we were doing in this regard from 2008-10, it’s not very good, not very compelling. We’ve started structurally to shift our business to a mix of wholesale and retail. We’re combining ecommerce into our marketing department, and our store department. People who design our stores, design our website, and brand marketing belong to one business leader. My expectation for him is no matter where we stand, we want to see something consistent. Consumers’ tolerance for inconsistency is zero.”
DeMartini said the company has customer data living in three or four different places.
“The only way to solve it is to put all of these guys on the same team,” he explained. “Structurally, we have to rewire ourselves to be ready to do business with people on a 1-to-1 basis. It used to be an opportunity. Now it’s a mandate. Concepts are pretty easy. Execution of it is quite complicated. Consumers will have zero tolerance unless there is transparency. There can’t be one set of rules online and then another set of rules in the store.”
What’s more, DeMartini said New Balance plans to launch its first systemwide loyalty program early next year.
“It’s certainly an area we’re thinking a lot about,” he said. “We want to reshape relationships with consumers directly. We’re a 108-year-old company and we’ve primarily built our business by relating to consumers through our dealer network and been a wholesale-based company.”
DeMartini said New Balance views the digital revolution as a way to level the playing field dramatically against its competitors.
“We’ve got competitors 10-12 times bigger than us and can outspend us at a moment’s notice and do all the time,” he said. “We saw the ability to develop loyal relationships 1-on-1 as a potential way to mitigate some of that size difference and potentially gain back a little ground. We believe that the conversation with consumers would be more important than the conversation at consumers.”
Technology is a challenging area, DeMartini said.
“It’s an area that’s waking me up at night,” he said. “We don’t need to be on the bleeding edge, but I need to be in the top third. We’re trying to use a keen eye toward a younger and younger consumer because they are incredibly savvy, and they absorb media at unbelievable rates. We want to talk to them and figure out their expectations. I don’t think we are keeping up yet, but we’re acknowledging we have an opportunity. We have to adjust to take care of it.”